Thursday, October 08, 2015

William Willett, a former two-term United States congressman from New York, finally achieved his goal of becoming a judge. Well, a “judge” on the prisoners’ court which enforces the rules in Sing Sing, where he’s serving a stretch for attempting to buy a seat on the state Supreme Court. And now a boxer named Tim Cronin registers an objection to Willett sentencing him to 10 days confinement for attempting to evade prison mail censorship by punching him very hard indeed in the face.

Last January, Kenneth Triest, a Princeton freshman, somehow snuck off to England and joined the Royal Navy, pretending to be a Canadian, with the intention of ferreting out naval secrets and giving them to Germany. He has been arrested and is being held in the Tower of London. His father (who was born in Germany) says he’s mentally unbalanced. He is believed, incorrectly, to have been sentenced to death. The US State Department and Theodore Roosevelt will put pressure on Britain, which will return him next month. I think the British government thought leniency would make a nice contrast with Germany’s execution of Nurse Edith Cavell. Er, spoiler alert.